In the early morning line to watch the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried.

Sam Bankman-Fried’s criminal fraud trial wasn’t the only high-stakes battle to play out at the federal courthouse in Manhattan over the past month.

There was also a line to get in.

Over five weeks, the trial – with its mix of cryptocurrency intrigue and tabloid-worthy romance – attracted an unusually diverse crew of reporters, crypto YouTubers, documentarians and aspiring influencers. Everyone wanted to sit in the gallery to see Mr. Bankman-Fried in person.

But there were only 21 seats available to the public in the 26th floor courtroom, and the struggle for access set off something of an arms race. If someone was queuing outside at 5am, someone else would try to get in at 4am the next day.

A few spectators went to absurd lengths to secure a seat. When it became clear that Mr. Bankman-Fried intended to testify, a dedicated trial observer boarded a plane in London, flew overnight to New York and went straight from his hotel to the courthouse, where he arrived at around 1 a.m. arrived. freelance journalist showed up just after 10:30 p.m. and huddled in the cold until the courthouse doors opened nine hours later.

I stood in this line every day of the trial. Believe it or not, it was quite fun. The gossip flowed freely. When it wasn’t too cold the atmosphere was great.

To maintain order, a group of us created a document known as “the list,” a sign-in sheet that recorded the order in which people arrived to wait. Everyone outside the first 21 was sent to a set landing roomswhere a video feed is played on individual TV monitors.

In my opinion, the advantages of the list system were clear: you could leave the courthouse to take a walk or buy coffee without fearing someone would steal your spot. At least initially, the response to the list was overwhelmingly positive. As I was checking people in one morning, a colleague greeted me as the “main camp counselor on the trial” – a dubious honor, I know – and thanked the early morning crew for keeping everything organized.

But heavy is the head that wears the crown. One morning around seven o’clock in the morning a coup nearly broke out. A man who had arrived too late to get a seat confronted the reporter managing the list for the day, saying he didn’t understand our “customs.” He suggested that the signatures on the application form may have been forged to allow a cabal of established media types to gain entry.

We were a little confused. But a friendly YouTuber named Taco volunteered to offer enforcement when disappointed spectators became unruly, and tensions subsided after a few days.

On the last day of Mr Bankman-Fried’s cross-examination, I arrived at the courthouse before 1am. ​​About a dozen of us huddled in the cold, waiting for the crowd to arrive. No one came to fruition.

“We played ourselves,” someone said around six in the morning, when it was clear we could all have slept in.

But a few hours later, as I took my seat in the courtroom, with a perfect view of the witness stand, I came to a different conclusion: It was worth it.